9am: Good morning and welcome to our daily sports news blog. Throughout the day we'll update this page with stories, links and what's expected to happen in the hours ahead. Time permitting, we'll try to post below the line, answering your questions and comments.

9.44am: After a long summer break of 3.4 days, the football season is almost upon us again. We'll be running a club-by-club guide to the Premier League, starting with Arsenal and Aston Villa today and finishing up with Wigan and Wolves next Friday. David Hytner's guide to Arsenal is up now. Oh, and the Guardian will be publishing its excellent annual season guide next [checks with important paper types] Monday. TL

9.52am: Oh, and just in case we sound Premier League-centric, John Ashdown has been busy in his north London penthouse preparing his season previews for the Championship and Leagues One and Two, they'll be arriving later this week.

10.05am: A new chapter in the Cesc Fábregas saga, there's a bit of a stir after the Arsenal captain cried at a ceremony in which he was shown photos of himself as a member of the Barcelona youth team. Maybe he was just crying at how, after a gilded youth, he's ended up as an empty shell of a man with only a World Cup winner's medal, a Euro 2008 winner's medal and millions of euros. Or maybe he was actually crying because he also spoke about the death of his grandfather during the speech and this isn't really anything to do with a move to Barcelona at all. TL

10.20am: From Lushattic below the line:

Everything about that incident was a disgrace, his spatial awareness has always been questionable but his dulled reactions make him even more dangerous, the man should be forced to retire before he kills someone.

His comments were arrogant (no change there then).and as for the "punishment" it is incredibly weak.

Go now Michael.

I genuinely thought you were talking about Anderson until I read the final paragraph. TL

12.25pm: A new week and a fresh tipping competition in Talking Horses. This week we're giving away a pair of tickets to Doncaster for a week on Saturday. You can click here for the details, along with all of today's racing news. KM

2.59pm: Apologies for the silence, it's a fairly quiet one today. But the second of our Premier League previews is now up, as Stuart James assesses Aston Villa's chances this season. Can they stay in the European places or will they go backwards? Here's a taster:

Disruptive again because Manchester City's pursuit of James Milner has mirrored the Gareth Barry saga two years ago, and underwhelming again because of the familiar lack of transfer activity before a new season starts. With a sell-to-buy policy in place, O'Neill needs to move people on, but at the time of writing not one of the six senior players who Villa would listen to offers for – and whose collective wages are close to £250,000 a week in return for no more than the odd outing – has found a new club."

This time last year I suggested that unless there was a flurry of activity before the transfer window shut – and as it happens Richard Dunne, James Collins and Stephen Warnock arrived just before business closed – Aston Villa faced the prospect of going backwards under Martin O'Neill for the first time. Twelve months later the same sentiments appear to apply after another disruptive and underwhelming close-season at Villa Park.

3.12pm: Things could hardly be better with British athletics at the moment, with 19 medals in total in Barcelona. This would seem to be a little less rosy in Ireland where Derval O'Rourke, who won the silver medal in the women's 100m hurdles, has launched a blistering attack on her own association Athletics Ireland (AAI). "I'm happy with my own team," the 29-year-old said, "but I'm not necessarily happy with where 'high performance sport' is in athletics. But I've had to disassociate with that and do my own thing because I think if you don't paddle your own canoe in Irish athletics, you're going nowhere and that's a little bit sad." EF

3.28pm: Liverpool fans will probably say they'll believe it when they see it but, acoording to the Press Association, potentional new owner Kenny Huang will invest heavily in both players and a new 60,000 seat stadium should his takeover prove to be successful. He also hopes to have control of the club in time to spend some money in this transfer window, which closes at the end of the month, so potentially we are entering endgame in the Liverpool ownership saga, which is something we all must be grateful for. EF

4.07pm: Those who doubted that 'sorry' was a word in Michael Schumacher's lexicon should hang their heads in shame. You know who you are. "Right after the race I was still in the heat of the action," Schumacher has said of yesterday's incident with Rubens Barrichello. "But after watching the moment again with Rubens, I must say the stewards were right in their assessment: the manoeuvre against Rubens was too dangerous. I wanted to make it hard for him to pass me but I didn't want to endanger him with my manoeuvre. If he has this feeling I am sorry, this was not my intention." Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton fears his world title dreams are "hanging by a thin thread" following a disastrous weekend for his McLaren team in Hungary. EF

4.37pm: After losing in the final of the Farmers Classic last night, another blow for Andy Murray after Darren Cahill ruled himself out of the running to become his new coach. Cahill – who in the past has worked with Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt – would certainly have been an excellent addition to the world No4's team, but has decided the job would be too time-consuming. "Andy's one of the best players on the Tour right now but from what I understand, he's looking for a full-time coach," said the Australian. "I've got my ESPN [commentary] duties and also work with Adidas. I can't be full-time for anyone." KM

6.01pm: Well that's all for today folks. If you read one (occasionally) humorous football email before you go home, make sure it's The Fiver. Thanks for all your comments. Bye